Economic benefits of Canada’s World Cup hosting gig were muted, data show

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While the 2026 FIFA World Cup led to a modest lift in consumer spending, economists say those gains aren’t likely to provide a sustained boost to the Canadian economy that many policy makers had hoped for.

Taken together, governments pooled more than $1-billion to host 13 matches in Toronto and Vancouver, with officials from both cities stating the tournament would create jobs, increase economic activity and lead to a lasting increase in international tourism.

In a report released ahead of the tournament, economists at Bank of Montreal estimated consumer spending and tourism would only add a combined 0.1 percentage points to Canada’s quarterly annualized gross domestic product.

World Cup delivered a tourism blip to Canada in June, early numbers show

Shelly Kaushik, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said their estimates still stand after the tournament.

“It looks like there’s maybe some modest boost in spending, especially around Toronto and Vancouver, but there’s no major big economic impact from the tournament,” she said.

According to data from Square, the digital payments processing company, bars and breweries in Canada saw around a 16-per-cent lift in transaction volume between June 11 and June 27, a period when the tournament was in full swing and Canada hosted 10 games, compared to the three weeks prior.

Ms. Kaushik said June GDP data, set to be released next month, will provide more context in how consumer spending was affected by the tournament.

While employment in June was little changed over the month, accommodation and food services posted the largest gains out of any sector. On a year-over-year basis, employment in those industries was up over 3 per cent. There were also gains in part-time work and employment among young people.

“We’ve seen I think higher than normal employment levels in accommodation and food services, and to a smaller degree in culture and recreation as well, which could also be thanks to the tournament,” Ms. Kaushik said.

During the nearly six-week tournament, the cost of tourism-related services climbed sharply.

Hotel and accommodation prices rose 10 per cent on a year-over-year basis in June, accelerating from a 2.5-per-cent gain in May, according to inflation statistics published Monday by Statistics Canada. The price hikes were largely driven by higher hotel prices in Toronto and Vancouver, which the statistics agency said could possibly be related to the World Cup.

Airfare prices also accelerated year-over-year, Statscan said. Andrew Grantham, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said in a note to clients that the upturn “could also be a World Cup impact but also likely reflects higher fares as airlines passed through increases in fuel costs.”

Statscan said greater demand for domestic travel also contributed to airfare price increases.

But economists warned that any domestic spending shouldn’t be measured as a net economic benefit, because that money likely would have been spent elsewhere in Canada or at another point in time.

“If someone’s coming from somewhere else in the country to Toronto and Vancouver, that would help those economies. But, on net, for Canada, it’s likely going to be a wash,” Ms. Kaushik said.

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Moshe Lander, economist and senior lecturer at Concordia University, agreed and said that because the events didn’t result in any new hotel construction, the tourists that visited were simply “displacing tourists that would have otherwise been coming.”

“The net benefit is only those extra tourists that show up,” Mr. Lander said.

As the tournament approached, officials repeatedly predicted that Toronto and Vancouver could each receive as many as 300,000 out-of-town visitors – both foreign and domestic – because of the matches.

But preliminary travel data showed that host cities saw a minimal increase in international visitors, including destinations across the United States, which hosted a combined 78 games.

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Last week, Statscan said air arrivals to Canada from the 15 overseas countries with teams that played matches in Toronto and Vancouver jumped 32.5 per cent to 120,358 visitors in June, compared to the year before. However, the total number of non-residents who entered Canada last month was just 5 per cent higher than the year prior, and remained 1.6 per cent lower than in June, 2024.

Like Canada, the U.S. saw a limited increase in foreign arrivals, according to non-stop international air-traffic data released by the National Travel and Tourism Office. Airports serving the 11 U.S. host cities experienced a 5.8-per-cent increase in arrivals by foreign citizens in June, compared to the year before, but traffic was still below 2024 levels.

“There’s a lot to be proud of, especially with how Canada performed, but there’s these bigger headwinds at least for economic growth – in the form of trade uncertainty, in the form of geopolitical uncertainty, with the war and the energy price shock – in the quarters to come,” Ms. Kaushik said.

With a report from Jason Kirby

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported Statistics Canada's figures for air arrivals from 15 overseas countries with teams that played in Canada. This version has been corrected.